Recently, though, it seems his desire to fight Davis is for far more personal reasons, as he recently told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio).

Davis (10-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) initially was slated to fight Forrest Griffin in the co-headliner of this past weekend’s UFC 155 event. However, Griffin was forced off the card with a knee injury, and now Davis is on the sidelines awaiting his next challenge.

Magalhaes (10-5 MMA, 1-1 UFC) admitted the UFC came to him about serving as a replacement for Griffin, but with just three weeks’ notice, he said he could only fight at heavyweight because he wasn’t in fighting shape. That never happened, but Magalhaes told the UFC he still wants the fight.

“I told [UFC officials] to make it later, and [they] said, ‘Fine, call him out. If you want that fight, you need to make it happen,'” Magalhaes said. “I started to call him out because I want the fight.”

Those callouts sometimes got personal, and the feud found its way to Twitter. Magalhaes hoped the bout would take place next month at UFC 157, which UFC matchmaker Joe Silva told him was a possibility, he said. But there was an issue.

“Simply Phil said, ‘I’m not planning to fight in February. I have family plans. I don’t want to fight him until April,'” Magalhaes said. “Well, he didn’t even say he wanted to fight me in April, just that he wanted to fight in April.”

Magalhaes, though, wasn’t jazzed about the idea of waiting that long, though with the next few months’ fight cards quickly filling up, he may not have much of an option. The Brazilian recently returned to the UFC and submitted Igor Pokrajac at UFC 152. He’s now won six straight fights, but the majority of the wins came outside the organization following his runner-up finish on “The Ultimate Fighter 8″ and a subsequent UFC release.

“I don’t want to be sitting out that long,” Magalhaes said. “I want to be active. Here’s the thing: Phil’s in a comfortable spot now. He’s a Top 10 fighter. He can sit out for a whole year, and he’ll probably keep that status as a Top 10 fighter.

“But me? I just got back to the UFC. I shouldn’t be calling anybody out that high up. I should just get my wins. It’s what I want. I thought Phil Davis was a good fight for me. I just think it’s a winnable fight. So why not? He’s available. I’m available. There’s like no one else available in my range. The guys … ranked around me, they’re not available. It’s not that I don’t want to fight those guys. It’s just that one is available except for Matt Hamill, and he doesn’t want to fight either.”

“Look at them, though,” Magalhaes said. “Style-wise, they’re all good fights for him. It’s not like he beat nobodies. He beat good names. But style-wise, he’d probably beat those guys in 10 out of 10 fights. And I don’t think that would happen against me. He takes people down and out-grapples them. He won’t do that to me.

” … He went to a local FOX (affiliate) in LA and said, ‘I’ll take him down. I’ll hold him. Wrestlers are know for stopping jiu-jitsu guys.’ Really? What kind of jiu-jitsu guys are you talking about? We’re not talking about a local jiu-jitsu champion. … I may not be the best in the world, but I’m right there.”

For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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